


three is a charm

by aquaexplicit



Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Cisco Is Team Leader Because The Wells Don't Know What They're Doing, HR Is Just Happy To Be Here, Harry is bad at feelings, Jealousy, M/M, Praise, Season 3, Threesome - M/M/M, Voyeurism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-26
Updated: 2017-06-26
Packaged: 2018-11-19 07:44:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,859
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11308863
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aquaexplicit/pseuds/aquaexplicit
Summary: “I’ve found that anytime you have second thoughts, it’s best to just stop thinking. Trust your gut.” HR pats his stomach. “Right, Francisco?”HR reaches to brush his knuckles over Cisco’s own belly and Cisco laughs, dancing away. Harry’s jaw tenses. Seeing HR touch Cisco so casually, so knowingly, seizes with claws any doubt Harry had.Harry shuts the door behind him.





	three is a charm

**Author's Note:**

> If you haven't seen the season 3 finale, this does *not* contain spoilers. If you have seen the season 3 finale, this is *not* a fix it fic. Everything is (mostly) canon compliant and the angst tag is For Real.

Harry is looking at a metahuman DNA sample through the microscope, but he isn’t seeing the cells stretch and collide and string together. His vision is still clouded by the sight of _HR_ , hovering pest like behind Cisco’s hunched shoulders, fingers petting through Cisco’s hair.

He’s thinking of those dumb, clumsy hands when Cisco barrels into the lab.

“Hey Harry,” Cisco says, bright and breathless. Harry’s eye twitches. “So. I know you said you didn’t want anything for your birthday.”

Harry’s entire nervous system twitches.

If stupid HR hadn’t blabbed about their stupid birthday, Harry wouldn’t have had to deal with these children scampering about him the past few days, trying to suss out how he wanted to celebrate. 

“But we’re having a surprise party for HR.”

“And you’re telling me this because?” Harry grits.

“Because you’re invited. Duh.” Cisco takes the chair next to him, spinning because, Harry suspects, Harry finds it annoying. Harry’s suspicions are confirmed when he pushes his foot under the seat to stop the movement and Cisco grins, all teeth.

“I have plans.”

“Hot date?”

Harry puts his foot back on the ground and ignores the way Cisco’s eyebrows wriggle.

“I haven’t been kidnapped in a while. Figure I’m due for another meta to chain me up in a warehouse.” 

Cisco laughs easily. “Well Jesse is coming, and as anti-birthday as you are, you can’t not spend your birthday with your only daughter.”

Jesse is going to HR’s party? Traitor. “That’s playing dirty, Ramon,” Harry says.

Then the grin is back, full force and blinding. “I always play dirty.”

Harry tries to find some solace from Jesse’s betrayal and the way Cisco’s mouth curls around the word _dirty_ by glaring at the ceiling. The nothingness he finds mocks him.

“Fine.” He surrenders, which has been happening more and more where Cisco is concerned. “Anything else?”

“Yeah. Actually. I have a, uh, favor to ask. And you can say no - ”

“No.”

Cisco frowns. “You haven’t heard it yet.”

“ _Fine_ ,” Harry says again, rolling his eyes. “Tell me your favor so I can say no and you can pout and we both go on with our day.”

“I don’t pout,” Cisco says, pouting. It draws Harry’s attention to the full flush of his bottom lip. “It’s for HR.”

“Oh well in that case, of course I’ll do it, no matter what.” He waits a beat. “Not!”

“You know that stopped being funny the first time you did it.”

“Ramon.”

Cisco lifts his hands, fingers spread and face open, a multiversal pose of surrender. It’s a good look for him. “I want to give him something special for his birthday and you’re kind of the only one who can help.”

Good, Harry thinks. When he refuses, HR won’t get whatever _special_ thing Cisco wants to grant. “And what, exactly, do you want to give him?”

“A threesome.”

Harry chokes on air that’s suddenly a 1000 degrees. All of the blood in his body, oceans of it, rushes to his ears and he sees Cisco’s mouth moving but can’t make out the words.

Cisco didn’t just say - he really must be getting older, because he just heard Cisco say but Cisco _didn’t_ just say -

“Well, a pseudo-threesome, anyway. There wouldn’t be anything with you and HR. Although he does always go on about how handsome you are and I don’t know if that’s just vanity or…” Cisco waves his hand. “Anyway. It’d just be you and me. While HR watches.”

Harry’s burned dry mouth gapes while his brain seizes on the words _just you and me_. Cisco is watching him, expectant. Harry doesn’t know what he could possibly expect.

“You - ” Harry starts. Falters as he feels his tongue, fat with fever, swell against his lips. “Why - ”

 _Why would you want to give him that_ , he thinks of asking. _What makes you think I would want to give him that._

_Is that the only reason you would let me touch you?_

He snatches the last bitter thought, chokes it down. “Are you actually... _with_ that moron?” is what Harry finally manages to say.

“He’s not a moron. He’s just intelligent in other areas. And I’m not _with_ him.” Cisco narrows his eyes, thinking. “But I’m not _not_ with him.”

Cisco leans forward, knees spreading with the movement, and Harry flashes to how easily he could slot between them. He substitutes HR’s image with his own and his stomach twists.

“We work together,” Cisco says. His hands are spread open on his thighs and his fingers drum against his jeans. “We hang out outside of work. And occasionally there are sleepovers. It's not exclusive.”

“Sleepovers,” Harry repeats. The word feels distant in his mouth. His mouth feels distant from his body.

“He even braids my hair. I don’t know if that’s some weird Earth-19 foreplay or if that’s all him, but whatever. He’s good at it.”

Harry doesn’t know what to say to that. So he stays silent. And thinks.

He runs through the past few days. HR following at Cisco’s heels like a particularly obnoxious dog. HR bringing Cisco coffee and sweet things and Cisco smiling, pleased and pretty, taking them with thanks. HR waxing poetic about Cisco’s bravery while Cisco puts his face in his hands.

HR grinning like an idiot as he’s allowed to be as close to Cisco - to all of them - as he wants, the way Harry can’t be.

“You can say no now,” Cisco says. He sounds soft, looks soft - skin and mouth and _hair_ , all soft, but Harry doesn’t know for sure. HR does. Cisco’s eyes are soft, too, as he adds, “If you want.”

Harry almost laughs but his throat is too dry. Because Harry does want. Cisco has to know. It’s why he left and it’s why he keeps leaving. It’s why he’ll leave again. He wants, and he shouldn’t have, regardless of whether or not he could. If he ever knew Cisco’s skin beneath his hands the way HR does, he doesn’t know if he could ever go back. And he has to.

Cisco sighs. “I will take your continued silence as the no. Figured it was a long shot anyway. Guess I’ll go with plan C for HR’s present.”

Harry briefly wonders what the fuck plan A was. Cisco is standing, stance a little more tense than it was before he came in. Harry isn’t going to speak. He’s going to pretend this never happened.

Then Cisco’s hair falls against his cheek and the familiar itch to tuck it behind his ear bites at Harry’s fingers.

It occurs to Harry that HR has probably done just that. Harry hasn’t. The idea that HR knows Cisco in a way Harry doesn’t is just deeply, fundamentally, universally unfair.

“Fine,” Harry says before he realizes he’s speaking.

Cisco halts and turns to him with wide eyes. “Fine? Fine as in, fine, let’s pretend this super awkward conversation never happened, or fine as in, fine I’ll help you achieve coolest friend with benefits stat ever and bang you for HR’s birthday?”

Harry digs his fingertips into the tops of his thighs. What is he doing. What the hell is he doing. “The second one.”

“Oh.” Cisco blinks. “You’re not gonna yell ‘not’ in a second, are you?”

In response, Harry asks, “When.” It doesn’t come out as a question.

“You’re serious? Seriously serious? Dead Sirius Black serious?”

“If you say serious again I’m taking it back.”

Cisco stops talking but doesn’t shut his mouth. It spreads into a grin that’s more innocent than Harry is comfortable looking at.

“Okay. I just can’t believe you’re ser - cirrus. Clouds. Cirrus clouds are the type of clouds that are out today. And you’re going to help me give HR the coolest birthday present ever. Tomorrow, at my place, after his party and wine. Lots of wine. But not too much.”

Harry nods. “Fine.”

“This is going to be awesome. You’re not going to regret it.”

“Already do, Ramon. Now let me get back to work.”

Smiling, Cisco nods. “Right. Of course. I’ll see you tomorrow.” He pauses. Bites his lip the way he does when he’s trying to keep whatever’s in his head from popping out of his mouth. “Thanks. And I promise you won’t regret it. Ser - Really.”

Cisco bounces out of the lab.

Harry is definitely going to regret this.

-

After HR’s surprise party - and really, it’s not much of a surprise party if the guest of honor is the one who decorates and yells surprise to himself, _idiot_ \- Harry stands outside Cisco’s apartment door, knuckles rapping on his door.

Cisco opens it with a smile that’s spit slick and red. HR is pressed to his back, wine glass in one hand, other hanging happy and stupid over Cisco’s chest.

“Happy birthday, handsome!”

Harry didn’t drink enough for this.

Cisco prods HR out of the doorway, hands and voice gentle, and Harry hesitates before stepping inside. Twenty four hours ago, this seemed like - not necessarily a _good_ idea, but a fun one. He would get to touch Cisco and prove he was superior to his doppelganger in bed in addition to every other possible thing. A win win.

Now, though, standing face to face with them - seeing Cisco’s mouth, bruised with heat and HR -

“Second thoughts?” Cisco asks softly. There’s no judgement. No pressure. Harry could turn around right now. 

“I’ve found that anytime you have second thoughts, it’s best to just stop thinking. Trust your gut.” HR pats his stomach. “Right, Francisco?”

HR reaches to brush his knuckles over Cisco’s own belly and Cisco laughs, dancing away. Harry’s jaw tenses. Seeing HR touch Cisco so casually, so knowingly, seizes with claws any doubt Harry had.

Harry shuts the door behind him.

“So,” Cisco says, dragging out the word once Harry is inside. “We should probably start with some ground rules.”

“Rules,” Harry repeats. He’s been in Cisco’s apartment a few times before. Nothing much has changed. His eyes narrow on a pair of drumsticks on the coffee table. “What kind of rules?”

“Shoes and socks off, first,” HR says. “No socks while making love.”

Harry wonders if that’s Cisco’s rule or his before Cisco waves his hand. “It’s unsettling, okay? And that’s not the most important rule.”

HR frowns. His wrinkles bloom and stay as he tries to think. Harry hopes he doesn’t look that stupid when he’s thinking.

“Don’t hurt yourself.” He leans against the door to start shucking off his boots.

“The most important rule is we always communicate,” Cisco says. He crosses his arms and watches Harry pointedly. “That means _saying_ what we feel and _listening_ to others.”

“No means no,” HR chirps, like he’s being helpful. He flutters behind Cisco again. His chin perches on Cisco’s shoulder and his hands, sans wine glass now, spread over Cisco’s middle. Cisco’s own hands settle easily over the touch. “And _yes_ means _yes_.”

HR presses a kiss to Cisco’s neck. Cisco just tilts into it, just lets him. Harry yanks his socks off.

“Also, no glove, no love. No name calling, no marks above the collar - ”

“Don’t want people distracted,” HR explains. His mouth is still moving over Cisco’s throat.

“And no pain.”

HR nuzzles Cisco’s cheek. Nuzzles.

“Got it,” Harry grits. Cisco’s floor is warm beneath his bare feet.

“What about you? Any rules we should know about?” Cisco asks.

Opening his eyes, HR fixes his gaze on Harry. It’s fuzzy with alcohol and lust and being stupid. Harry stares back at him.

“He doesn’t touch me.”

“Oh, that’s not. Uh. Not that I don’t think you’re scrumptious, Harry. But that’s not the fantasy we’re achieving on this celebratory day.” HR untangles himself from Cisco with a final open mouthed kiss to Cisco’s jaw.

Cisco meets Harry’s gaze. He looks apologetic, as annoyed as Harry feels, but flushed. There’s color on his cheeks and mouth and his lips are bitten more plush than usual. 

It strikes Harry that HR may have put that there, but he’s going to be the one to work Cisco from fevered to burning. All the lust Harry’s been locking in that Cisco shaped box and shoving into the dark, untouched part of his brain starts to drizzle through his blood.

“You see,” HR begins, and Harry recognizes this tone. His eyes roll in preemptive irritation. Does this man not ever _shut up_. “Francisco in his lab, on the field of battle, is magnificent. He is an avatar of fire! Brilliant! And I have the great pleasure of getting to see him shine.”

“An avatar of fire.”

Cisco shrugs. “He’s better on paper than extemporaneous speaking.”

HR circles to stand in front of Cisco. He cups Cisco’s cheeks in his hands.

“But Francisco in the throes of pleasure is... _exquisite._ ” Cisco’s eyes flutter closed for a moment. Harry can’t see HR’s expression - he’s sure it’s goofy, though - but he can see HR’s thumbs swipe over Cisco’s cheekbones. “Breathtaking, really. Like nothing I’ve ever seen.”

Then he leans in, pressing what looks like a chaste kiss to Cisco’s wine red mouth. It pulls Harry forward, urging him to move further into the apartment. He wants to push HR out of the way and take his place. Show Cisco what kind of pleasure a man with his face is really capable of giving.

HR pulls back and then he’s on the move again, all static, unfocused energy.

“But that’s the rub a dub dub, duck in the tub!” HR rubs his hands together in emphasis and moves beside Cisco. “I can’t actually _see_ him because I am, myself, also in the throes of pleasure. Which is where you come in.” He nudges Cisco with his elbow. “Get it? Because he - ”

With a sigh, Cisco turns to HR. “What did we say about bedroom puns?”

HR is actually capable of shutting his mouth. He opens it immediately again, though. “No bedroom puns.” He looks at Harry. “No bedroom puns. It ruins the mood.”

“Noted,” Harry says.

“So that is where… the idea of inviting you originated. I get to see Francisco’s body, which is made for delights of the flesh, in all of it’s glory, with the second most handsome devil I know.”

“We figured it would work better than a mirror on the ceiling,” Cisco says, gesturing.

Harry isn’t going to look, but curiosity bites, and he glances to see that, indeed, a mirror has been mounted on the ceiling above the bed. He rolls his eyes back to Cisco, who mouths Plan A.

“Desire truly is the sister of innovation,” HR misquotes happily. “And I can’t imagine a greater gift. Being able to see Francisco’s beautiful face, illuminated with pleasure, glowing with - ”

“Why don’t we talk more about it instead of doing it?” Harry snaps. His patience, burgeoning on non-existent from the moment he knocked on the door, has dipped into the negatives.

HR claps his hands. “Right! Let’s get this rodeo on the road.”

Harry watches Cisco and HR not move. He doesn’t move. An unsteady chill creeps up his spine as he realizes with dull, distant horror he isn’t exactly sure what to do. The heat of want is urging him to pin Cisco’s face in his hands and kiss him deep and panting. Convince him HR’s presence is unnecessary. But he isn’t sure how or where to start or what, exactly, Cisco wants.

“Hey,” Cisco says, sensing his unease. Maybe vibing it, maybe knowing it because he’s spent enough time with Harry to read the slump of his spine. “We don’t have to jump right in. Why don’t we start with you coming over here?”

It’s a soft tease but it’s familiar territory. Harry’s drawn into Cisco’s personal space. His fingers curl and uncurl, unsure but hungry. Cisco’s smile is sweet and drunk as he reaches for Harry’s face.

“Are you okay with kissing?” he asks. His palms are warm on Harry’s jaw.

“Oh, you really shouldn’t pass up kissing,” HR advises. He’s hovering behind Cisco again, hands on Cisco’s hips. Harry wants to pry them away. “He’s an excellent kisser. You will literally see stars.”

The gentle smile is still on Cisco’s mouth. Harry wants to taste it. And tonight, since he can, he leans forward.

Cisco breathes out but stays still, lets Harry feel the petal pressure and silk of his mouth. Harry’s hands finally find their ground on Cisco’s chest.

He feels Cisco flinch, the smallest of shudders, but it’s real enough for Harry to pull away. Cisco’s eyes are closed. When he opens them, his pupils have spread in pools of black.

Harry remembers a time when Cisco couldn’t even meet his gaze. When Cisco couldn’t look at him without seeing the man who squeezed then broke his heart. Now Cisco is pressed hot between two men with that face, flushed and breathing heavy and trusting them with the body Eobard Thawne had ravaged.

Cisco is strong. Harry knows this. But Cisco has a reckless ridge in his spine that curves at the worst of times and his sense of self-preservation isn’t what even Harry would consider healthy. 

Harry has the urge to ask if he’s okay. If this is really a good idea. If this is something Cisco wants because he _wants_ it or because he’s heart sick for another life.

But Cisco’s thumb drifts across his jaw, a touch meant to _comfort_ , as if Harry is the fragile one. Harry’s own hands crawl up, settling closer to Cisco’s throat. He can feel Cisco’s pulse drumming under his touch. It’s steady.

“Still with us, Harry?”

Harry takes his mouth again. It’s more insistent this time, less testing and more knowing. He tries to shed the fuzzy unsteadiness that has stretched his skin dry by licking at Cisco’s mouth. Cisco opens to him, easy as anything.

It’s infuriating but HR was right: kissing Cisco is an experience. Harry doesn’t see stars though. He doesn’t see or hear anything, really, and he doesn’t think. He just _feels_.  

His lips are raw against Cisco’s and his tongue feels cinnamon swollen. There’s heat and sting and Harry tries to soothe it by tangling their tongues together. All of the air sizzles from his lungs.

He has no sense of how long they’ve been kissing, time and space lost in the ocean deep of Cisco’s mouth, but eventually he has to pull away to drag in a greedy gulp of air. He breathes out and in against Cisco’s cheek.

“You get used to it,” he hears HR say. HR sounds far away but Harry can feel his heat mingled with Cisco’s own. “His mouth is - well. You don’t have them here, but there are these chocolates infused with peppers, and that’s the only thing I know to compare it to.”

“Don’t talk about me like I’m not here,” Cisco grumbles.

“A thousand apologies.” HR kisses Cisco below his ear. Cisco makes a soft noise - did he make any noises when Harry kissed him, did Harry - and tilts his head. “Your mouth is one of the treasures of the universe.”

Before HR can experience that treasure, Harry cradles Cisco’s jaw with his right hand and kisses his mouth again. Cisco does make a sound, then, bone deep and languid. Harry swallows it whole.

They kiss lazy and deep. Harry memorizes the taste, the slick heat, the grooves of Cisco’s teeth. He pulls every trick he hasn’t used in years to coax more of those wet noises from Cisco’s sweet throat.

One of Cisco’s moans shakes a little lower than the rest. Satisfaction tugs Harry’s gut but he hasn’t changed up his approach in a few minutes. Harry opens his eyes to see HR pulling Cisco's shirt and sucking a bruise into Cisco’s exposed shoulder.

Irritation flare guns up Harry’s spine. He drags his teeth over Cisco’s bottom lip and Cisco’s hands flutter to his shoulders, fingertips digging in. But Harry doesn’t know if it’s in reaction to HR’s mouth or his or both of theirs.

Harry rasps against Cisco’s mouth. “I thought he was just going to watch?”

HR slowly raises his head from Cisco’s skin. “Oh. Well I thought at this point I’d help. You know. Warm him up. Show you how he likes it.” Cisco tilts his head back, exposing the line of his throat, and Harry wishes it wasn’t a rule not to leave a mark. His teeth ache. “I thought I should show him how you like it so it’s - I want this to be good for you, too.”

Cisco shudders between them again. “It is good. It is very, very good.” He brushes their mouths together. “And it’s about to get better.” Another kiss. “Why don’t you go to your chair?”

Harry raises an eyebrow at that. But HR just grins. He moves his hands and there’s a snap - did he just slap Cisco’s ass - and practically bounces away.

“Do I have a special chair too?”

“Not yet,” Cisco smiles. “I was thinking I would just take you to bed.”

Harry feels his world narrow to the horizon of Cisco’s body, the morning bright of his mouth. He lets Cisco take his hand and lead him to the bedroom.

He’s never been in Cisco’s bedroom before.

His heart is beating a bruise into his chest as he follows Cisco. It’s an odd sensation, being led, one he wasn’t expecting from tonight. But nothing is going as he expected.

He thought at this point he’d have been able to do more than kiss Cisco a few times. Thought Cisco would be - not _easy_ \- but easier to pull apart, have writhing and forgetting about HR while Harry fucked away his doppelganger’s touch and replaced it with his own. 

Cisco pauses before they cross the threshold into his room. He twists to kiss Harry again, soft. Chaste. Harry thinks of flowers when Cisco brushes his mouth against his cheek.

“Do I need to go over the rules again? About communicating?”

Harry licks at Cisco’s mouth just to see the reaction. Cisco makes a breathy sound, but when Harry tries to lick inside, he turns his head.

“Harry. I’m not kidding. If you need to slow down, or stop, or anything, you have to tell us.”

“Scouts honor,” Harry says, holding up three fingers.

Cisco doesn’t look convinced. “You were a Boy Scout?”

“Sailor.”

“That is something _very_ different here,” Cisco says, but he’s grinning again, not so serious. He tugs Harry into his room.

Cisco’s bed is huge. It looks like a cloud draped in Star Wars sheets, swallowing up the room. There’s a desk that’s a mess of what Cisco would say is organized chaos. Posters. Pictures and pictures - Harry thinks he sees himself in one, and Jesse.

And then there’s a chair, dark blue and overstuffed. HR is perched in it. He’s naked. 

“My eyes.” Harry disentangles his hand from Cisco’s to remove his glasses and press his knuckles into his sockets. He can’t unsee it.

“Our body is a temple,” HR says. “And it’s nothing you haven’t seen before. Don’t be such a prude. Francisco, tell him not to be such a prude.”

“Harry,” Cisco says. He’s laughing. “Harry, come on. You had to expect that.”

Harry’s eyes are still closed. “He’s just supposed to be watching. Not watching without clothes on.”

Cisco is still laughing as he presses his palms to Harry’s chest. “If you keep your eyes closed the whole time, you’re gonna miss a lot.”

The humor in Cisco’s voice doesn’t do anything to lessen the temptation of it. Harry wants to lean into the warmth. He cracks one eye open, careful to keep HR’s nakedness out of his line of vision.

Cisco rewards him with a smile. Those sure hands come up to his face again, rough thumb ghosting over his lips. It’s a barely there touch but it’s enough to coax Harry into sliding his eyes fully open again. He stares at Cisco’s lips.

“HR’s gonna touch himself,” Cisco says smoothly. His voice is like honey, thick and sweet and clogging Harry’s senses. “While I touch you. Is that okay?”

Harry likes the second part of that equation. But there’s a boulder sized nagging in his throat, whispering that Cisco is far to put together while he’s the one who feels a step away from the cliff’s edge. He wants to be the one pushing Cisco over, hauling him with tongue and touch, spreading him open and aching.

“And when do I get to touch you?”

“Anytime you want,” Cisco breathes. He starts walking backwards. Harry follows him, pulled by the want that swipes at Cisco, finds him just out of reach.

“How do I get to touch you?” Harry asks once Cisco’s thighs hit the bed.

Harry stops breathing, just for a second, while he waits for Cisco’s answer. Cisco doesn’t disappoint him.

“Any way you want to touch me.”

Harry wants to touch him _every_ way.

He starts with Cisco’s face again. Runs his fingertips over Cisco’s cheeks and feels triumph when Cisco’s sighs happily and closes his eyes. Cisco’s skin is so soft, like his mouth, and Harry’s hands move along a subconscious blueprint. His fingernails shiver over Cisco’s scalp. He takes a moment to breathe in the texture of Cisco’s hair, the way it flows like night and water through his fingers.

“That feels good,” Cisco says. Gentle. Encouraging.

It makes Harry’s jaw twitch. He wants Cisco taken apart. Begging.

He tugs with just the slightest more pressure. Cisco makes another happy noise.

“Not too hard,” HR says from his dumb chair that may as well be on another world. “His lustrous locks need to be admired. Don’t - ah, don’t pull them like that. He likes it sweet.”

“Maybe he’s in the mood for something a little different,” Harry says. He curls his fingers in Cisco’s hair to angle his head back, then swoops in, sucking Cisco’s bottom lip into his mouth. His body throbs at Cisco’s surprised groan.

HR says something but Harry ignores it in favor of dragging his teeth over Cisco’s neck. He kisses the thin skin, licks it, reminds himself _no bruises_ and soothes the thought by nipping at Cisco’s ear. Cisco lets Harry explore while his own hands stroke over Harry’s sides. His fingertips slip under Harry’s shirt and Harry can’t stop the low moan that tumbles into Cisco’s velvet skin.

Cisco is touching him. His belly flutters under Cisco’s palms and he pulls harder at Cisco’s hair. Lust coils and uncoils with every stroke of Cisco’s touch. He realizes how pitiful and needy his responses are. Tomorrow he’ll regret it.

Tonight, though, there's a wanton thing that comes alive as Cisco’s short fingernails bite goosebumps over his ribs. It stretches him dark and open.  

“I want you naked,” Harry breathes into Cisco’s ear. “I want to see all of you. Touch all of you.”

“Right back at ‘ya.”

Harry reluctantly untangles his fingers from Cisco’s hair. He gets them under Cisco’s button up, feeling his belly - every part of Cisco is soft and warm, Harry could lose himself in Cisco so easily - before he starts working at the buttons. He tries to take his time, undo Cisco like a present, but Cisco is flashing a teasing grin and Harry has to kiss him again. It forces his fingers to move lightening quick, reveal all that honey skin.

Too fast, not fast enough, he’s pushing the shirt from Cisco’s shoulders. He’s thankful Cisco has abandoned the ridiculous layers he used to favor.

He takes a moment to take it in. Cisco is broader than Harry, has grown more into a man since the first time Harry met him. His stomach is flat and flutters with each breath. His skin is golden brown. Harry’s mouth waters for the sweetness of it.

“Take a picture and it will last longer,” Cisco quips, but there’s the barest crack of nerves, the first Harry has seen all night.

“You’re breathtaking,” HR says from the corner. Harry is going to gag him. Or punch him in the throat. “Beautiful. Like nothing I’ve seen in the whole of the multiverse.”

“He’s - he exaggerates.” Cisco’s smile is a little bashful, teeth achingly sweet.

“No, Francisco. Not when it comes to you. You are magnificent, especially like this. Being adored as you always should be. Tell him, Harrison. Tell him how exquisite he is.”

Harry wants to deck him. Thinks about it, seriously, until Cisco shakes his head. His fingers hook beneath Harry’s shirt and tug.

“Harrison,” HR says.

Harry lets Cisco pull his sweater then his undershirt over his head. He’s not listening to HR, not going to follow his direction, is going to shove a sock in his mouth, but then Cisco slides his teeth over his own lip and his hands settle on Harry with slightly less pressure than before.

“Ramon,” he says. Cisco’s eyes are firmly on his stomach and he strokes over the muscles. Harry cups Cisco's cheek with one hand. Settles the other over Cisco’s collarbone. “Cisco.”

“You don’t - praising me is his thing. I didn’t expect it to be yours.”

HR sighs. “You like being praised. And you should be, because it’s just the truth. You, Francisco Ramon, are a creature of beauty and - ”

“You’re pretty,” Harry bites, hoping it will shut HR up and get Cisco focused on taking their pants off.

Cisco’s eyebrows climb. “Pretty. Really.”

“The prettiest,” HR enforces from his chair.

“My thanks to the peanut gallery.” Harry forgets for a second that HR is nude and turns to glare at him, only to be traumatized all over again. “Can you tell him to stop talking.”

“It's his birthday,” Cisco says patiently. But he does give HR a Look at Harry's insistence. “HR. Babe. Maybe cool it with the commentary tonight?”

Harry scowls. _Babe_.

He can practically hear HR make a face, feel the obnoxious vibration of his voice. Ignores it all in favor of sucking gently on Cisco's distracted throat and getting his fingers on Cisco's fly.

Cisco's hands come up to grip his hips. The move puts fingers on his skin, warm palms over the cut of his bones. His dick strains against his own zipper. He's been trying to ignore it - he's had a lot of practice ignoring the aches Cisco roots in him - and focus on Cisco. But now that they're so close, that he's so close to what he's rarely even let himself fantasize about, he can't pretend. He can't stop himself from yanking at Cisco's pants with one hand and using a too rough grip to force Cisco's hand over the bulge in his own. When Cisco touches him, he hisses like it burns because it _does_.

Harry hasn't wanted anything in so long. Abstracts and vague ideals like fixing the mess he wrought on his Earth, yes, but nothing as solid as Cisco. Now Cisco is touching him, licking his lips, looking at him with no idea what havoc he's wreaking on Harry's insides -

How could Harry have thought this would be a good idea. 

“Let's get these off,” Cisco says, still so _gentle_. Harry wants to wreck him. “We want - I want to suck you. Can I?”

Harry can pretend he's part of the we - _just you and me_ \- and answers by fucking his tongue into Cisco's cutting mouth.

They both manage to get their pants off. Harry breathes Cisco in. All of that lush skin stretches for miles. Harry knows it's summer warm to the touch but all of the barren, sliced up parts of him ache for the coolness of Cisco's body. He looks like water after months of dehydration. Harry has to run his hands over Cisco, make sure he's not a mirage.

His fingers search from collar bone to belly to hips. Cisco shudders and lets him. Harry itches to touch Cisco's dick, flushed and smeared wet at the tip. His tongue swells with the urge to taste.

He curls his fingers around Cisco, light, a whisper. Cisco makes the prettiest punched sound and pushes into his grip.

“Not yet,” HR says. He sounds breathless. “He likes to be teased.”

Harry doesn't stop. HR gets to have this whenever he wants. He can decide how to play it then.

But Harry does loosen his grip. Brings just fingers to the underside of Cisco's cock, dragging tips along the hot skin. Stops to drag his thumb over the slit. Cisco is like silk here too. It feels _good_ to touch him. Harry doesn't want to stop, wants to tease until Cisco is wet all over, until Cisco says _pleaseHarryplease_. Wants to memorize how Cisco feels in his hand, blood hot and blood thick. Harry wonders if Cisco tastes like cinnamon or copper.

“Harry. Fuck.” Cisco digs his fingers into Harry's biceps like he can't help it and presses his forehead to Harry's collar. He's panting for it.

Harry feels anchored back into his body. This is what he wanted, what he's been craving. Cisco shaking and groaning and taking it. He is beautiful. He is everything HR said he was.

HR shouldn't get to have him like this. Neither should Harry.

“Let me,” Cisco is saying, gasping. “Wanna be on my knees for you. Harry, fuck, let me.”

The part of Harry's brain that controls motor functions sizzles. He lets Cisco maneuver them until he's sitting on the edge of the bed and Cisco is kneeling between his legs. Harry feels like he's the one on the floor, though.

HR is telling Cisco how magnificent he looks on his knees, how incredible it is to see what they look like together. It's an anomaly, Harry wants to bite. It's because HR looks like Harry that HR gets to see this, not the other way around. Harry was here first - _second_. Cisco wanted this to be Harry first - _didn't he_.

Cisco’s face is flushed again. There's color on his cheekbones as he leans in, kissing Harry's thighs like Harry needs to be soothed or seduced. His hair rubs against Harry's legs. Harry palms his cheeks.

“Put your fingers in his hair,” HR instructs.

Out of spite, Harry almost doesn't, even though that was his next move. Feel the silk of Cisco's hair and guide those lips over his dick. He thinks of keeping his hands on Cisco's face so he can feel the outline of himself between Cisco's cheeks.

Then Cisco peers up at him through his lashes. It's demure and utterly deceptive but Harry is drawn in anyway.

“Do it,” Cisco says. It's a command but his tone and eyes are soft enough it could sound like a plea. Harry suspects this is as close to begging as Cisco gets. “Show me how you like it. Take what you want.”

What Harry wants. He threads his fingers through Cisco's hair and uses his grip to guide Cisco's open mouth to the head of his dick. What Harry wants is to fuck inside Cisco's machete mouth and _stay there_ until Cisco pleads for more. To keep Cisco like this and from the rest of the world that wants to use him up. He wants to use Cisco up.

Cisco doesn't break eye contact as Harry coaxes him to suck, not stopping until Cisco’s nose is pressed to his skin. Cisco's lashes butterfly flutter and he moans around Harry the way he moans around his morning coffee.

“He loves this. The feeling of me - of you in his mouth. He's so good. Francisco, gorgeous, you're so good. I knew you looked incredible like this but the painters - the greatest sculptors couldn't create something as moving as you on your knees.”

Shut up, Harry would bark, if he could talk, but Cisco has started _moving_ at HR’s words. Harry isn't guiding him so much as hanging on for the ride. Cisco swallows him up and down, rubbing his tongue along Harry's veins as he does.

It's wet and messy. _Cisco_ is a mess, spit pooling around his mouth, cheeks glistening, tears gathering crystalline in the corners of his eyes when he takes Harry all the way in. It really is a sight to behold.

A sight to hear, too. Cisco is making all these hot, hungry noises around Harry's dick. Harry wants to soak them all up. He tugs Cisco's hair, slowing him, and Cisco makes an unhappy sound that flips Harry’s stomach. But Cisco doesn't try to speed up again. He just lets Harry move him, let's Harry lift his hips a little to fuck shallow and slow in his mouth.

Harry wants to come like this and he doesn't. He needs to see Cisco swallow him down - maybe tell Cisco to open his mouth all the way at the last minute, spill all over his lips and panting tongue, make Cisco lick it all up - but then it would be _over_. The thought is too much to bear.

HR is talking agan. “Oh I knew you were lovely like this but I truly had no _idea_. How much you love being taken. Look how hard you are, how pretty - “ He's panting all of his praise and Harry tries not to think that HR is probably touching himself now.

Harry interrupts the gentle filth. “You want me to fuck you, Ramon?” His throat is the one that sounds wrecked raw.

Cisco groans. He looks up at Harry with wet eyes. His gaze is darker than Harry has ever seen and there is an open wound ache that mirrors Harry’s own. Harry takes that as a yes.

Harry tugs hard at Cisco's hair until Cisco eases off his dick with an obscene pop. Cisco licks his lips and Harry is so damn tempted to push right back inside that insane heat he has to bite his cheek to stay still.

“Why'd you stop me?” Cisco asks. _Whines_.

Harry closes his eyes. “Because I'm going to get you on my dick and that wasn't going to happen if you didn't give it a rest.”

“Oh.” When Harry looks at him again, he's grinning.

“We’re not as young as you, Francisco. No longer spring chickens able to cock a doodle doo again after 20 minutes. Now we need protein and a half hour at minimum. Unless you have any grim root around here?”

“HR,” Cisco says.

“No, of course not, because you would've told me last week when I couldn't make love to you twice even though it had been a few days because that awful - “

“ _Babe_.” HR finally stops talking. Cisco smiles at him, though, as if HR’s prattling is endearing. Then Cisco turns the same indulgent look to Harry. 

Cisco's hands are spread on Harry's thighs, thumbs moving up and down. Harry drinks in the mess he made of Cisco's mouth, feels drunk with the obscenity of it. Does Cisco look like this when HR is through with him? 

Harry presses his thumb between Cisco's lips, just because he can, and thinks maybe Cisco really does need a change of pace. Someone who will fuck him like he won't break but is trying to break him anyway. Cisco licks his fingertip, gnaws at it for a second between a smile. Harry withdraws and rubs at his bottom lip.

“How do you want me?” Cisco asks.

Every way one person can have another, Harry thinks.

“You should - ” HR starts to suggest.

“On your back,” Harry says quickly, cutting HR off. Harry decides to give up getting him to stop talking. He just needs to make sure he keeps Cisco so distracted and caught up in pleasure that HR’s words don't reach him.

Cisco tilts his head so he can press a kiss to Harry’s palm. It feels almost reverent.

“Excellent choice. Just excellent. The way his hair fans out on the pillow is like a halo. He looks like an angel. I don't know if you caught the latest installment of my series but I describe Francisco’s character as an angel because of this very vision.”

Cisco pauses. “You didn't put this very vision in it though, right? You said you didn't write about me like that.”

“You didn't read it?” HR sounds wounded.

“I just haven't had a chance to experience it yet,” Cisco says, supplicating.

Apparently it soothes HR because his next words are as annoyingly chipper as his normal ones. “You flatter me. Your support means the world to me. And no, I didn't paint this picture. This particular magic is recorded only in my private, personal memoirs.”

“Memoirs of a moron,” Harry says.

Cisco laughs but tries to look like he didn't. Harry doesn't know if HR is offended - HR is probably too stupid to realize it's an insult, anyway - and he doesn't care. Cisco rises from his knees and crawls onto the bed.

Harry watches him move like an animal and feels like an animal. Cisco settles in the middle of the bed with an artless flop. His hair does fan out like a dark halo. He does look like an angel. Harry wants to devour him.

“Like a work of art,” HR breathes.

Cisco just laughs, like all of this is a joke, like HR is just trying to charm him and Harry isn't going to eat him alive. He spreads his arms open, palms facing upward. His face is just as utterly open when he looks at Harry.

Maybe Harry should've let himself imagine this. Should've made a blueprint for driving Cisco out of his mind. Now he feels as if he's taken another not quite right turn in this maze. Maybe then he wouldn't feel quite so much like he's dangled over a cliff. 

Then Cisco, like a beacon, crooks his finger. “Come up here, Harry. Kiss me again.”

Harry feels the hook of Cisco’s voice slice deep. It pulls him up, stretches his body over Cisco's supine skin, anchors his arms at the side of Cisco's head. Body on body like this, Harry feels both more calm and more vicious. He pumps his hips to drag their cocks together. The friction is dry and painful and Harry has to stop from coming all over Cisco like some kind of kid.

He kisses Cisco. The angle is different, everything is different, now that they're both bare and flush together. It's worse and better. Cisco pets at his chest, his abs, his arms; any part of Harry that Cisco can touch, he touches. It's water warm and peaceful and riles Harry further.

“Everything is in the bedside drawer,” Cisco tells him when Harry slides his mouth to kiss Cisco's jaw. 

Harry takes in the information and mouths at Cisco's throat. He kisses over Cisco's collar, down his pectorals. Hovers above Cisco’s nipples and _stops_ when just his breath has Cisco moving his hips. Harry peers up to see Cisco biting his lip.

“Sensitive,” Cisco and HR pant at the same time. Harry watches Cisco turn his head, smile at HR like they’re sharing a secret. He wants Cisco’s eyes back on him so he drags his tongue flat over Cisco’s peaked skin. Cisco’s whole body comes alive beneath him and he hisses _Harry_ and grips his shoulders.

“Very sensitive,” HR says, happy and breathy. “Delicate. If you’re a very patient and very diligent man of eroticism, as I am myself, you can get him to - ”

“That was one time,” Cisco whines. Harry doesn’t know if the bratty tone is a rally against HR’s implication or Harry’s teeth scraping over Cisco’s _delicacy_. Cisco squirms like he’s trying to get away but his fingers press on Harry’s spine.

“Oh, no, no teeth there. That’s a no biting zone, Harrison.”

Harry ignores HR in favor of sucking the nipple he’s been working on between his teeth. He does bite, not hard, but enough to punch the most shocked little noise of pleasure from Cisco’s throat. Cisco isn’t telling him no. Cisco is arching in and pulling away and saying his name in a whine. Harry rolls the other nipple between his thumb and forefinger, nails paper thin and light against the flesh.

“He’s biting in a no biting zone.” HR sounds alarmed. “And pinching, also in a no pinching zone.”

“It’s - fine - _Harry_.”

“Can you really get off like this?” Harry asks, lips moving over Cisco’s reddened skin. The place Harry’s been working with his mouth is swollen and glistening.

Cisco gives a low, sweet moan as Harry scrapes his tongue over him. “It seriously was just one time. And it did take a lot - _ah_ \- of patience. Which I’m pretty sure you don’t have.”

Harry considers this while he sucks Cisco’s skin and soaks the sounds of Cisco’s moans into his bones.

There's a nightstand to the left of the bed. Harry bites his way back to Cisco’s mouth. Cisco kisses him and it feels different than the other kisses: more eager, less controlled. It takes Harry a few seconds to catch up but when Cisco sinks hungry teeth into his lip, the first time he's bitten Harry, the difference snaps into place: Cisco isn't worrying about him right now, isn't concerned with making this good for him. He's letting himself enjoy this without thinking for the first time tonight. 

Harry lets out his frustration by wrapping his hand around Cisco’s jaw. “Don't,” he says. “Don't you dare hold back.”

Cisco stares at him without the decency of looking caught. He just runs his hands along Harry’s sides, thumbs over Harry's hips, kisses Harry with his eyes wide open.

“It's your birthday too,” he says by way of explanation.

Always the self-sacrificer. Harry is going to break him of that. At least tonight.

It’s a stretch to work the nightstand drawer open. When Harry peers inside, there are bottles of different flavored slicks and condoms. There are candles, too, and a box of matches. A blindfold. A glint that Harry can’t quite make out until he dips his hand inside and feels cold metal under his fingertips.

“Hey, handsome. Don’t get any ideas with those. Francisco and I worked a long time to get to the handcuff stage. You’re not there yet. Right? He’s not - the two of you aren’t there yet?”

Cisco says something to calm HR and Harry swallows around a stone slide of anger. If Cisco wants this - handcuffs and blindfolds and a Wells to work him over - he should be getting it from Harry. Not from this idiot impostor who’s helped himself to Harry’s life.

Harry grabs a tube of slick and a condom and slams the door shut.

He moves to hover over Cisco again. Leans in, speaks directly over his mouth so Cisco is sure not to miss his words. “It’s time to follow your own rule now, Ramon. Honest communication.” He tweaks Cisco’s chest, hard, and Cisco tries to bite back a whimper but Harry licks his mouth to catch it. “Tell me what you want.”

“What I really really want,” Cisco says.

Harry can tell he’s quoting something, not what, but it doesn’t matter. Cisco is deflecting and Harry’s over it. He pinches Cisco again. Cisco clenches his eyes and his jaw and reaches out to grip Harry’s fingers.

“Show me,” Harry urges. Show HR, too, that he hasn’t been giving Cisco what he needs. That even if HR touched him first Harry will touch him better. That Harry is the one who really knows him.

Cisco guides Harry’s hand down his body; over the ridges of his ribs, the soft flush of his belly, the smoothness of his hips. He drags Harry’s fingers over the head of his cock and twists his head to the side, mouth and throat open. Harry doesn’t move on his own, even though he wants to wrap his hand around Cisco again and slide until Cisco asks for more. He just lets Cisco take what he wants.

After a few shallow touches, Cisco brings Harry’s hand lower. Cisco puts both feet flat on the bed and lifts his hips, presses Harry’s damp fingers right _there_. A shudder like a ghost passes through all three of them.

“I want your fingers,” Cisco says, finally - _finally_ \- sounding as desperate as Harry feels. It’s a relief to feel as if he’s drowning with Cisco instead of just inside of him. “And your mouth. If that’s okay.”

There’s a groan and Harry doesn’t know if it came from him or HR. Doesn’t matter, because it’s not HR who Cisco is asking for. Harry’s jaw jumps in time with his dick and he slides down Cisco’s body. He’s starving for this. Cisco’s taste, Cisco’s want.

He starts with just breath. Warm gust over Cisco’s cock, feather press of a touch with his fingers. Cisco shudders and squirms and tangles his fingers in Harry’s hair. Harry keeps every movement a tease as he reaches for the lube and spreads wet over his fingers. When he has them slick, he reaches back under Cisco’s body. He barely presses his open mouth to the head of Cisco’s dick. Cisco _shakes_.

Harry has the urge to smirk in HR’s direction.

But then HR is talking again. “Oh, Francisco. You have no idea what you look like falling apart. I had no idea. I mean, I had _an_ idea, but I didn’t realize. You’re - oh, you are _splendor_.”

Taunting HR with how much better he is at taking Cisco apart isn’t as satisfying when HR doesn’t realize that’s what Harry is doing. Harry glances at Cisco, hands and lips still flush but gentle against him, and the electric pulses that keep him alive short circuit for a second.

Cisco has moved his hands. They’re twisted on other side of his head, gripping the pillow. His mouth is swollen and gaping like a wound. The flush of his cheeks has spread down his chest, over the dark peak of the nipples Harry just worked over. He’s cursing something filthy.

Splendor doesn’t really cover it.

Cisco peers down at him. “Harry. Don't be a dick.”

Harry keeps eye contact as he runs his tongue over Cisco's skin. A knife of triumph stabs at his gut when Cisco's head falls back against the pillow.

“I hate you,” Cisco pants.

Good, Harry thinks, and presses his index finger into Cisco's next moan.

Cisco is hot and tight and Harry needs to drag this out because he doesn't know how long he'll last once he's actually got Cisco on his cock. So he's slow. Methodical. Works Cisco open and apart like he would pry at an equation: ruthlessly.

He alternates between watching Cisco's face and the way Cisco swallows his fingers. When he finally gets his mouth around Cisco's dick he does close his eyes just to focus on the sounds Cisco makes.

Harry's jaw aches with the stretch, but it's good. It's the exhaustion that follows a breakthrough or the sore in his muscles after going for a run. It reminds him he's alive. He wants to feel it tomorrow.

Cisco pets through his hair and shakes apart between his mouth and fingers. His staccato moans rise above HR’s whispered praises. Harry focuses on Cisco’s fingernails sliding over his scalp, Cisco gasping for breath, Cisco fucking down onto his fingers and up into his mouth like he can’t figure out which is better.

“M’close,” Cisco says, far too quickly.

Harry eases off Cisco’s cock but doesn’t stop fingering him. “Not yet,” he says. He gets his mouth on the meat of Cisco’s thigh and sucks there - not above the collar, this skin is fair game for Harry to mark.

“Come on. You asked what I wanted. I want - I need to - ” The gentle control Cisco has maintained through the night shakes. Harry can hear it in his voice. Neediness is started to bleed through Cisco’s careful grip.

“Francisco,” HR says, coaxing. “Gorgeous, you’re doing so well. You can wait a little while longer. It feels so much better when you wait, doesn’t it?”

And Cisco is saying yes but not sounding happy about it. Harry licks at Cisco while anger licks at him. HR shouldn’t be able to drag Cisco’s attention away when Harry is _inside_ of him. Cisco’s attention should be his now. Cisco should be -

Harry works in another finger and let’s Cisco saying his name quiet his more vicious thoughts. Finds the sharp, shocking place that makes Cisco cry out.

“ _Harry_. You gotta - stop doing that - ”

“Doing what.” Harry rubs him again. Before he can say anything else, Harry takes him back into his mouth.

Cisco curses. HR curses, too, something corny from his corny Earth.

Harry works Cisco up to three fingers. He knows he has Cisco on the knife edge of pleasure - Cisco keens for him, and swears, and squirms. Every time Harry sinks down on him or pulls back just to lick, Cisco makes the most miserable, gut wrenching noises. Harry has to squeeze the base of his dick, pinch his own thigh to keep from grinding into the bed.

“I’m gonna - Harry, if you don’t stop, I’m gonna - ”

It must be agony. Harry feels it in his marrow. The hurt of waiting. The ache of wanting so badly and being so close. He doesn’t believe in mercy, though, for either of them, so he slows the stab of his fingers and stops sucking, holding Cisco vulnerable on his tongue.

There’s a sudden movement, a dip in the bed. Harry opens his eyes to see HR sliding one knee next to Cisco, leaning over his face, both hands stroking his cheeks.

Harry slides off Cisco and speaks over Cisco’s pained groan. “Hey. Get off.”

“I’m in the process of doing so,” HR says, eyes and touch still focused solely on Cisco. “I just wanted to look at him - I wanted to look into your eyes when you came.”

Cisco shudders at the words. Harry glares at them both. “You look with your eyes, not your hands. Go back to your chair.” They continue staring at each other. Harry gives a cruel crook of his fingers and Cisco’s hips startle. “Tell him to back to his chair.”

“Harry,” he says, all of that gentle patience and control from earlier coating his voice again. Harry hates the film of calm that settles warm over his skin at the sound. "If that’s what you need, he’ll go back. He’s just trying to enjoy his present, just like you. But he’ll go back. Won’t you, baby?”

HR nods dumbly, the same way he does everything, and stares at Cisco’s mouth. Mesmerized. Harry stares, too, transfixed by whatever spell Cisco’s fingers moving through his hair has suddenly cast. Cisco works the same magic on HR, stroking over his hand.

“What do you want?” Cisco asks and Harry doesn’t know who he’s talking to.

Harry reaches into his gut and pulls out his first instinct. “Say my name when you come.”

Then he careens into Cisco with a different purpose. His fingers are sharper and his mouth is burning, burnt. He’s going to rip Cisco’s pleasure from the very tissue, scar him with it. Cisco will never be able to be in this bed with HR again and not think of him.

It doesn’t take much longer. Harry works Cisco from wanton to frenzied to tortured. Speeds up the spread of his fingers and takes Cisco into his throat, deeper than he can without it feeling like he’s choking, but the bite of pain is worth it. More than worth it. Cisco sounds like he’s losing his mind and he keeps saying Harry’s name like it hurts him.

Then there’s a final keened _Harry_ and Cisco comes apart.

Harry can hear the grate of HR’s praises above the blood in his ears, but just barely. He pulls off Cisco’s cock to gulp at the air. It doesn’t feel like there’s enough oxygen in the room to fill his punctured lungs. But he drags in breaths, panting as hard as Cisco.

“That was magnificent. You are _magnificent_.”

HR begins to tilt forward, a clear trajectory to Cisco’s open mouth, and Harry doesn’t think before his bones snap him forward. He covers Cisco’s body, gets his forearms near Cisco’s head, caging him from HR’s touch. Kisses him with his own taste still staining Harry’s mouth.

“I was going to do that,” HR says beside them, petulant.

Get in line, Harry wants to say. He was here first. Cisco was his to kiss and touch and fuck first. Harry keeps kissing Cisco instead; Cisco keeps kissing back, mouth soft and yielding to everything Harry wants.

When Harry pulls back for air again, Cisco is smiling. He looks dazed. Dazzling.

Cisco touches his cheek, keeps his palm warm against Harry’s skin before reaching out to cup HR the same way. Harry scowls.

“Can I kiss both of you?”

 _No_ Harry thinks as HR says, “Yes.” Harry glares at him. “I mean, technically, yes. I have done a threesome before, and I can say, from that experience, yes, you can kiss two people at once. It’s all about angles.” HR mashes his fingers together in what Harry can only hazard is a demonstration.

“You can say no,” Cisco says gently. He’s looking at Harry, talking to Harry, but the invitation extends to HR.

“You know I always want to kiss you, Francisco.”

“Fine,” Harry bites, surprising everyone, himself included. “But then he goes back to his damn chair and doesn’t touch you again until I’ve fucked you.”

Cisco’s grin is brilliant. “Deal.”

Cisco guides them both to him. HR falls against his mouth with enthusiasm. Harry is more cautious, following the coax of Cisco’s hand, angling away from HR as his mouth presses into Cisco’s moan.

He can feel HR’s cheek against his and it’s _weird_. Infuriating and suffocating and Harry wants to push HR on the floor so he can have the entirety of Cisco’s bruising mouth to himself. Cisco sighs and groans and presses his fingertips into Harry’s cheek.

Harry can only stand it for so long. He pulls away with a rasping breath. HR lingers, tongue dipping shallow and dirty between Cisco’s lips. Harry frustration grows and he really is going to just shove HR out of the bed when his doppelganger finally slides away.

HR kisses Cisco’s forehead before moving from the bed. Harry pointedly keeps his eyes on Cisco’s face, melted into a serene smile. When HR is settled - banished - back into his own space, Harry slides back over Cisco.

“You ready?” he asks against Cisco’s jaw.

Cisco laughs, entirely breathless. He pulls Harry in for a kiss. “I was born ready. Are you?”

It’s an easy challenge, unlike the other challenges between them. Harry answers by sucking Cisco’s lower lip between his teeth.

He gets to his knees. When he reaches for the condom and slick, Cisco sits up a little. “Here,” he says, stretching out his hands. “Let me.”

Harry is going to say no. He’s realized he has to dig his teeth into whatever shards of control he has here. But then Cisco leans up further, kisses his chest, the ugly bullet scar that rises above his skin. Cisco has commandeered the gear before Harry realizes what’s happening.

“It feels so good to make love to him,” HR tells him as Cisco gets him ready. Harry closes his eyes and focuses on Cisco’s clever fingers rolling the condom on, getting him slick. “Make sure to go slow. I find it helps to think of something bland. Like biscuits. Cold biscuits, of course, with none of ma’s homemade jam.”

Harry doesn’t even bother telling HR to shut up. He bucks into Cisco’s hand and forces himself to still when Cisco grins. HR is still talking when Harry gets a grip on Cisco’s jaw and kisses him deeply. That gets HR to stop long enough for Harry to pin Cisco back onto the bed. Cisco’s legs curl around Harry’s waist.

“Do it,” Cisco urges him but there’s no urgency. “I want you to. Harry. I want you to fuck me.”

Harry buries his face into Cisco’s neck.

“Look at him, Harrison. You have to - his _eyes_ , when you take him, you have to look him the eyes.”

Harry doesn’t know if HR is telling him for Cisco’s benefit or his own. It doesn’t matter, really, because Cisco tugs Harry away from his throat to meet his gaze. Cisco’s eyes are wet with focus. Harry grits his teeth.

Fucking into Cisco is like running head first into a fire. Harry has actually done that on his Earth and the adrenaline, the heart racing terror, the exhilaration, is all the same.

He accidentally takes HR’s advice because Cisco’s gaze won’t let him go. Cisco’s mouth drops into a perfect little ‘o’ and he makes a low, hurt noise like he didn’t know what Harry was going to do. He pins Harry’s face between his hands and holds Harry hostage.

“God.” Cisco arches into Harry, squirming to take the full force of him. “God damn. You feel so. Harry.”

“Is it the same?” HR pants. “Do we feel the same inside you, Francisco?”

For a second Harry thinks Cisco is going to say yes. Something like terror stills Harry’s hips. But Cisco shakes his head. “No. It’s - it’s different.” He bites his lip. “It’s good, though. Harry, you feel so good. Move.”

Harry isn’t sure if he was waiting for Cisco to tell him to move before he did but he isn’t sure he wasn’t. He is sure he wants to, though, so he curls one hand under Cisco’s neck and pulls out only to slam back in.

Cisco said it wasn't the same. Is it better, Harry wonders. Is this better than when HR gets him on his back.

Harry fucks in harder, harder and harder, trying to get deeper inside Cisco than HR or anyone else ever has. He gets his hands under Cisco’s thighs, gripping, and spreads them wider, higher. Cisco gets the message and hooks his ankles over Harry’s shoulders. It changes the angle, for both of them, and Cisco cries out sharply the next time Harry ruts forward. Harry feels like there’s more of him to fuck now. So much, too much. Harry pants.

HR makes a noise of mild distress. “You’re going too hard. Be more - you need to be more gentle. Harrison.”

“He’s fine,” Cisco breathes. “Just. Slow, Harry. Go slower.”

“Am I,” Harry grits. He has to stop talking and focus on slowing his movements because apparently he can’t do both at the same time. “Did I hurt you?”

Cisco’s smile is beatific. “No. I just want this to last.” He arches his neck in what looks like an uncomfortable angle. Harry meets him halfway for a kiss.

Harry tries. He slides out, takes a count, slides back in. He keeps the force and loses the speed, punching breathy noises out of Cisco’s full mouth. With great annoyance he even takes HR’s advice and tries to think of something other than the way Cisco’s body blooms for him, other than the way Cisco’s eyes flutter in pleasure pain but never leave his face. Harry thinks about the stack of papers on his desk. When the last time he did laundry was. If there was any milk in the fridge and if his house - not his home - will smell rotten when he finally gets back to his Earth.

He thinks but he can't focus. Cisco keeps clenching around him and arching into his thrusts. All the noises he makes are small but biting and buzz like great machines in his ears. Every time he fucks back in he can feel Cisco's cock, flushed and ready again, drag wet over his stomach.

Can Cisco come like this. Can he come again, with Harry inside him. Harry wants to feel it.

“Touch him,” HR says.

“Too much,” Cisco says before Harry can tell HR to get bent. “Not ready yet."

Harry does want to touch him, though. “You sure, Ramon?” Harry can't quite reach his mouth to Cisco's chest but he can get Cisco's nipples between his fingers and _pinch_. Cisco's fingers scramble and dig into his thighs. It hurts. Harry hopes he bruises. “I'll make it good for you.” 

“Francisco, let him. Let him touch you. I - we want to see how beautiful you are coming on our dick.”

Harry doesn't appreciate the use of the word _our_. This isn't a team effort. Harry's doing all the work here. HR is just profiting from it because that's what HR does.

“Please, let us see. My gorgeous Francisco, let us see.”

HR doesn't speak for him, but before Harry can do more than glare Cisco keens and bows.

“Okay. Just - gently, Harry.”

So Harry wraps his hand around Cisco, _gently_ , and works him in time with his thrusts. It may really be too much. It’s too much for Harry, anyway; the feeling of Cisco’s shaking in his hand while Cisco’s body grips him for dear life. Harry doesn’t think he’ll get Cisco to the edge again before he crashes himself.

Of course, Harry’s right.

Cisco starts urging him to go faster; first with his hips, snapping them more quickly than Harry can meet them at this pace, forcing him to speed up. Then with his words. He says _more_ and _Harry_ and _come on, yeah._  Harry convinces himself that it’s begging and not permission.

Harry meets Cisco’s gaze. He looks from Cisco’s mouth to the flush of his golden skin and back, sees Cisco’s lips forming around words he can’t hear over the obscene sounds of flesh and bone. Cisco presses his palm over Harry’s stomach and stretches as much as he can to cup the other over Harry’s jaw.

“Harry, I’m so close. Are you close? I can’t - Harry, I _can’t_ \- ”

He doesn’t hear whatever it is Cisco can’t do - _Cisco can do anything_. His orgasm comes in a bright splice of pleasure that brings him crashing down. He gets his mouth around Cisco’s shoulder and his hands around Cisco’s arms. Cisco curls around him.

The come down is a little painful. His thoughts rush back to him and he’s aware of how hot the room is, how sweat coats him and how hard it is to breathe pressed flush against Cisco’s own body heat. He can hear everything in the room now. His breathing, Cisco’s, HR’s.

“God.” Harry raises his head from Cisco’s skin to finding Cisco watching him. His smile is sleepy and sated even though Harry is sure he didn’t get off again, close as he was. Cisco runs his hands up and down Harry’s back. It makes him shiver. “That was. Wow. That was - ”

“Yeah,” Harry grits. It was.

“Seriously. You.” Cisco bites his lip like he’s hooked something new, too excited to talk about it idea. Harry’s seen him do it a hundred times. “You’re gonna have to roll off big guy. Breathing. Kind of an issue.”

Harry rolls out and off of Cisco with effort. Cisco just rolls with him, though, curling until they’re both facing each other on their sides.

“That’s better,” Cisco says before leaning in for a lazy kiss.

Harry kisses back artlessly. This is the end, or close to it. He doesn’t know if Cisco is trying to drag it out. Maybe comfort him that it’s over. Harry doesn’t know what to do as Cisco pulls away and rests their foreheads against each other.

But it's not over, apparently. Not for Cisco, at least. HR is crawling into the bed again, pressing himself all up against Cisco’s back, running his hands over Cisco’s sides.

“You were incredible,” HR mouths into Cisco’s throat. He tugs at Cisco’s hair and Cisco tilts his head back, tipping his mouth up for HR’s tongue. Harry has the urge to lick Cisco’s neck. He doesn’t move. “You are incredible.”

Cisco shifts. HR moans. Harry doesn’t need to look to know Cisco’s pressing into HR’s hips.

“Can I - please, Francisco, I want you. Can I. What can I.”

Cisco drags their noses together. “You can fuck me.”

It feels like being punched in the gut. Cisco says it so easily. Tilts into HR’s touch and gives in to what HR wants so easily. Harry doesn’t want to watch it but some masochistic urge holds him still. Forces him to see and think about what tonight would've been if he hadn’t left and helped HR get to this Earth in the first place.

_You did this to yourself._

“You’re not too sore?” HR asks, even as he reaches clumsily behind him to grab another condom from the drawer. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

“M’sore but it’s - it’s okay.” Cisco sighs, eyes slipping closed, and presses into HR’s hand as it disappears behind Cisco’s body. “Still feels good. And I want it.”

Harry should leave. It may have been HR’s fantasy to watch Cisco get fucked by a man with his face but it makes Harry’s stomach curl in on itself. He tries to scoot back on the bed. When he moves, Cisco opens his eyes. The softness that always cradles Cisco’s vision when Harry is about to leave is there.

“You don’t have to go,” Cisco says. He hesitates before running his palm over Harry’s arm. “You can stay. If you want.”

Swallowing hard, Harry closes his eyes. Focuses on the warmth of Cisco’s skin and the steady hitches of his breathing. “What. What do you want, Ramon?”

Cisco bites his lip again. “Will you watch us?” He tilts his head again, looking at HR. “Is that okay?”

“Yes,” HR says quickly. “He should get to see it from the other side, too.”

“Harry?” Cisco cups his cheek again.

Dirty, Harry thinks. Harry can't think when Cisco is so gentle with him. “Okay.”

HR takes that as the go ahead. He curls a hand over Cisco’s hip. Harry watches Cisco’s face. His eyes go fuzzy and unfocused but he keeps them open, keeps them locked with Harry’s. He curls his hands against Harry’s chest.

Harry scoots back in, close enough to feel Cisco’s breath on his skin. Cisco is rocked against him everytime HR moves. He’s so different under HR. His face is almost peaceful, soft and smooth. There’s no twisting or squirming. All of his noises are sweet.

In a way. God, in a way Harry understands why HR was so intoxicated with the idea of watching. Cataloging the differences in Cisco's reactions, being able to experience all of his pleasure without the distraction of Cisco's taking his own, is like seeing an experiment he designed finally come to life. It's breathtaking.

In another way, watching Cisco get fucked feels a little like having his insides scraped out. HR is so slow, so gentle, like Cisco’s going to break if he HR moves too fast. Cisco rocks back into his movements. Harry honestly can’t tell if Cisco likes this, being made love to, more than he liked Harry holding his thighs apart and fucking him hard and deep.

HR, who has actually, thankfully, managed to shut the hell up while fucking Cisco sweetly, mouths at Cisco’s jaw. “Can you come again, gorgeous?”

Cisco stares at Harry when he breathes, “Yeah.” His fingers slip over Harry’s chest.

“How do you want it?” HR asks.

Harry shifts forward. “Let me,” he says, reaching for Cisco’s cock.

“Are you sure?” Cisco says, searching.

Harry kisses him and tries not to think about the fact that, technically, he and HR are inside of Cisco at the same time. He ignores the way Cisco’s body rocks against his while HR fucks him. Cisco makes a soft noise when Harry wraps his hand around him.

He doesn’t think of it was working with HR to get Cisco off. Cisco fucks into his hand then back onto HR’s cock. Harry closes his eyes and focuses on the way Cisco moves with him.

“Fuck.” Cisco buries his head into the pillow, not looking at either of them. “ _Fuck_ , can you - just a little faster.”

HR speeds up, jarring Cisco faster. Harry speeds up, too. The angle of his wrist is awkward, a little painful, but Harry manages to swipe his thumb over the head of Cisco’s dick the way he seems to like. Cisco cries out. Says _his_ name, not HR’s, and yes. Harry’s going to be the one. The way Harry touches him is going to be what pulls the second orgasm of the night from him. 

Harry kisses him before HR can. He hears HR huff, then hears HR bury his discontent in Cisco’s skin.

“Come for us, Francisco,” HR says.

Cisco does. He reaches back to grip at HR with one hand and claws at Harry’s chest with other. He doesn't say either of their names, just curses sharply, shudders then spills all over Harry's hand.

Harry is going to wipe his fingers on the sheet but Cisco tugs his hand upwards. He has a second to wonder what Cisco's doing before Cisco starts licking the mess from his skin.

There's no way Harry can follow Cisco's lead but his dick gives a hungry, desperate throb anyway.

HR responds to the display with the most pitiful noise. He fucks Cisco a little faster, a little harder, and Cisco is like a ragdoll between them. Harry uses his free hand to pet Cisco's flank. Cisco laps at his hand until he's sticky with spit instead of Cisco's slick. Harry replaces his fingers with his tongue and swallows all of the noises HR coaxes out of Cisco.

Harry pulls away from the kiss to watch Cisco's face. It hurts to look at him, but Harry can't stop. Cisco clings to Harry even as he tips his head back and kisses HR dirty and deep.

HR breaks from the kiss to groan, “Perfect. Francisco, you're perfect, perfect, perfect - ” 

And then, just like that, it really is over.

-

Harry gets redressed in the living room. He plucked his clothes from the carpet while HR and Cisco cuddled and kissed and laughed together. Snuck out of the room while HR told Cisco this was the most beautiful birthday he'd ever had.

Cisco had called for him but he'd ignored it. He just wants to get back to the labs and shower this stupid idea off of him. Maybe drink the rest of the wine Joe brought to the not surprise surprise party.

He's pulling his sweater back on when Cisco shuffles out of the bedroom. His boxers are slung low on his hips and his hair is mussed. His lips look swollen and there are red marks on his chest and shoulders. He's a wreck. Exquisite.

“Sorry. It took me a second to get away - HR gets really clingy, after, and usually I'm down to spoon but I wanted to. I mean you kind of ran out of there.”

Cisco seems nervous for the first time. He offers up his most bashful smile and gets in Harry's personal bubble.

“Yeah. Well. It's not my - HR’s birthday anymore. And we were done giving him his present. So.”

“You didn't wanna cuddle?” Cisco rubs the back of his neck. “Kidding. I didn't figure you for the cuddling type.”

Harry nods. He's not.

“Ramon - ”

“Harry,” Cisco says, cutting him off. “I just. Wanted to say thanks. For tonight. It was.”

“Yeah. Well. I'm gonna. Head out.”

Cisco winces. “God. This is awkward as fuck. Did not anticipate that. Probably should've.” He pushes his hair behind his ears.

And Harry knows what it feels like now - Cisco's hair and skin and mouth. How soft and warm he is, inside and out. Harry thought - he almost laughs out loud - because he actually thought it would be better when his curiosity was satisfied. Knowing hasn't healed the great wound of wanting though. It's only made the pain a crueler itch.

“Listen, it’s like, nearly four in the morning. Why don't you just stay?”

The question startles Harry. He looks at the couch, layered with laundry and Cisco's scent.

“No. You think I’d make you sleep on the couch? That's cold. I meant. There's room in the bed for three. We figured that out.”

“I'm not really the sleepover type.”

Cisco moves closer to him. His steps are measured and steady like Harry is a skittish animal he doesn't want to scare. Harry has the urge to take a step back when Cisco gets close. Cisco stops.

“I'll sleep in the middle, so you don't have to worry about HR trying to nuzzle you in the morning or anything. And neither of us snore. And even with three people in it I know my bed's more comfortable than the cots at the lab.”

Cisco watches him closely, moves as slow as Harry's pulse, and steps within touching distance. Then he touches. It's just a palm on Harry's forearm but it feels like Cisco's body is underneath him all over again.

“Just stay,” Cisco says and for the first time sounds like he's pleading.

Harry takes a sharp breath. “Do you mean here, tonight, or…” 

Cisco rubs his thumb over Harry's arm. He watches him for a long time before stretching up to kiss him. Harry kisses back because he can.

Cisco breaks the kiss but not the contact. He noses along Harry's jaw, his chin. “Both,” he answers. He sounds so _honest._

“I can't,” Harry answers. It feels like a lie.

“Why not?” Cisco pulls back to look him in the eye. “Why can't you just - you don't have to stay all the time. Go do your Hannah Montana thing on Earth 2 then come back here to be Miley with us.”

Harry blinks.

“Bad example. But you get the gist of it. You don't have to go and stay gone. Go, be all you can be. Then come back.”

“It's not that simple, Ramon.”

“Isn't it?” Harry can't look at the hopeful, guileless smile. “Harry. Your daughter is here. Your friends. I'm here. Aren't we worth coming back to?” 

Harry takes a step back. “Don't. You know it's not about that. And you don't need me. None of you - you have HR now, and - ”

“Yeah. And he brings his own stuff to the team and we - I care about him, just because he's HR. But he's not you. And we want you around.” Cisco bites his lip. “I want you around.”

That can't be right. 

“What about the idiot?” Harry asks, nodding towards the bedroom.

"He's not an idiot," Cisco says, frowning. "He's part of the team now and I don't know exactly how to define us, but I like what HR and me have. But it's different than what we have."

What he and Harry have. Harry let's himself consider it for a full second before shooting it down. Harry can't have that. He doesn't get to.

"And it's not like he doesn't know how I feel. He's okay with sharing.”

“I'm not.” Harry presses the words through the angry stiff of his jaw. His teeth are on edge and aching. His gut twists. How can Cisco throw out these possibilities so casually? They never gave words to the connection between them and now, now that it's further sundered by HR and the wreck of the night, Cisco is talking about them like they're easy. Like this is simple.

“You did pretty good in there.” Cisco gives him another of those candy sweet smiles. “I know it's complicated but that's kind of our MO, right?”

Complicated. As if this is a puzzle or an equation or a piece of tech they can't quite get right. As if what's between them, even without the moron orbiting it, is anything short of impossible.

It's not distance. Or age. Or even HR, although Harry would have to erase him from the picture because he already shares Cisco enough with Barry and Caitlin and _doing good_. Harry can't share him anymore.

He doesn't know how Cisco can't see it, feel it, vibe it. _They_ can't exist because of fundamentals. Who Cisco is and who Harry isn't.

“I'm going back today.” Harry can't stop looking at Cisco's hand on his arm. “There's a meeting in a few days and I have to be ready.”

“A meeting. You - we finally resolve the unresolved sexual tension that's been between us for a _year_ and when we get to the emotional part you put an entire Earth between us for a _meeting?_ ”

Cisco's fingers have tightened around his forearm. Harry could tell him it's a meeting with the governor's office to discuss funding for Iron Heights meta wing and additional resources to CC Public Schools to help navigate the growing number of meta students. That people don't trust Harrison Wells and his private funding to combat meta human issues. That Harry is still hated there and not really much closer to redemption.

“It's an important meeting.”

Cisco shakes his head. “Unbelievable.”

“This word. I do not think it means - ”

“Uh-uh, no.” Cisco stops touching him. Harry's heart lurches, tries to crack from his chest and get back into Cisco's hands. “You do _not_ get to _Princess Bride_ me right now. You. God.”

Cisco runs his fingers through his hair and paces. “I thought this would be easier after we slept together. Because fucking is half the battle, right? But of course you can just shut it out like tonight never happened. You’re just. Unbelievable.”

“You thought what would be easier?” Harry says lowly.

Cisco looks at him. “Getting you to stay.”

“You.” Harry has trouble reathing the words. “You said this was for him.”

“It was. But let's be real. You didn't agree because of your well documented altruism.”

Harry glares. “You played me.”

“No," Cisco sighs, sounding exasperated. Sad. "Harry. I just wanted to show you what you were missing. What you could have if you didn't run away.”

Harry wants to be angry. He wants to feel betrayed. Instead he feels tired. Because Cisco's right. Harry wouldn't have done this if he didn't want him. HR's a moron but he wouldn't have done this either if he wasn't okay with sharing. Cisco would'nt have asked if he'd thought - known - how cruel it was.

Cisco achieved his goal. Harry knows in full technicolor detail what's here for him if he stays. Saving the day with the team, bouncing ideas and building revolutions with Cisco in the lab, letting Cisco take him apart in the dark. Gripping with bruising hands every part Cisco let him own. Taking him away from HR or with HR - showing Cisco who can really make him scream louder, come harder. He can have it all if he just stays.

“I can't,” Harry says again.

Cisco's face scrunches into that angry look only Harry inspires. His eyes are wet. Harry doesn't feel any sort of victory.

“Can't or won't?”

Both. But they're the same thing and it doesn't matter. If Cisco doesn't get it by now he never will. Better that way, in the long run. Cisco doesn't need that kind of cynicism.

“I've gotta get back to the lab. Pack up.”

Cisco doesn't look at him for several strained moments. Harry thinks that's it and walks to the door. When he brushes Cisco's side, Cisco stops him with firm hands on his chest.

“Just tonight,” Cisco says. “Just stay with me - us - for tonight. Let me wake up with you once.”

Harry's endured pain in his life. Nothing will ever cut as deeply as when Jesse was taken from him or when she walked away. This isn't, but it's digging close, touching his old wounds. It stings in different ways.

Harry rubs salt in all the places Cisco opened. He presses his fingers beneath Cisco's chin and tilts him into a kiss. Cisco bends into it like water.

“I'll see you in a few hours. Back at the lab.”

Cisco's fingers press against his chest. “You are such a dick.” He lets his forehead drop against Harry's collar. “At least let me vibe you back.”

“I've got the van." 

“So that's it?” Cisco sounds bitter. It's a new set of nails in Harry's skin.

He kisses Cisco's hair to inhale the scent. “Don't let the moron drive it while I'm gone.”

Harry presses one more kiss to Cisco's temple and rushes out the door.

-

Harry's nearly packed when Jesse speeds into the room they no longer share. It's not even 8 AM. The rest of the team is still sleeping - _Cisco curled in HR’s arms_ \- and Harry doubts they'll be around for a few hours.

“Happy day after your birthday,” she teases. She hugs him tight and he hugs her back, tighter. She zips onto a cot and watches him throw the rest of his clothes in a duffel. “Sooo… what did you do last night?”

Harry drops the sweater he just picked up. “I regretted my life decisions,” he says, not dishonestly. “Then took some aspirin and drank plenty of water. Someone has to do some work around here.”

“Interesting. Because after Wally and I went home I realized I left my hair brush here. And when I came back to get it, no dad. And no HR. Did he drag you to some after party we didn't know about?”

Harry thinks about what Cisco looked like falling apart between them, HR’s voice shuddering as he told Cisco how good and gorgeous and perfect he was. All of the things Harry couldn't and can't put into words.

“HR’s an idiot. I hate him.”

Jesse smiles. “When are you leaving?”

“As soon as I say goodbye to the joy of my life.”

Jesss frowns. “What about everyone else? You're not going to say goodbye to Barry? Joe? Cisco? You know Cisco pouts if he doesn't get goodbye hugs.”

Harry zips his duffle and doesn't double check to see if he grabbed everything.

“I said goodbye last night. Cisco.” Harry’s jaw aches around his name. “Cisco got his hug.”

“Is that where you were last night? With Cisco?” 

“No,” Harry says, angrier than he means to sound. Guilt gets him in an instant. He doesn't want to take out his frustration on Jesse. Never on Jesse. “I was getting some last minute things in order. And they’re in order now.”

“Fine. Keep your secrets.”

Harry hoists his bag over his shoulder then straps his gun to his chest. Cisco keeps saying he could upgrade it. Probably make it lighter, easier for Harry to carry. Harry’s sure he could. He’s not planning to let Cisco work on it.

Once he’s settled, Jesse speeds into his arms.

“You’re really okay with me staying?”

“Of course not,” Harry says against the top of her head. “But you’re happiest here. So this is where you should be.”

“Aren’t you happiest here too? You’re the happiest I’ve ever seen you.”

Harry rubs her arms. He’s happiest with her, his joy. He’ll be happy knowing she’s with good, strong people who love her, who have done a better job at keeping her safe than he ever has.

“Still a lot to fix on our Earth.”

She nods. She understands because she’s seen it, lived it, the mess he’s made. If he can ever overcome it, she’ll be proud of him again. Cisco could never get it the way she does. He shouldn’t.

“Are you sure you don’t want to stick around and say goodbye again? They’ll be so sad. Barry and Cisco will make the face.” She gives an exaggerated pout.

“They’ll be fine.”

“Any messages you want me to give them? Or one of them, in particular?” Harry shakes his head. “When can I tell them you’ll be back?”

“When they need my help,” Harry says simply. “And you will be visiting me as often as disasters allow.”

“Of course. Me and Wally. And maybe some of the others?”

Harry thinks about showing Cisco around the rest of S.T.A.R. Labs. His city. His home. Taking Cisco to - _in_ \- his bed. Could he sleep with Cisco under his sheets one night and still crawl under them alone the next? 

“We’re not running a travel agency.”

Jesse sighs. She promises to visit him whenever she can and communicate - call, text, send a picture with the interdimensional communicator Cisco rigged up - everyday. Before he steps into their Earth, she holds him tight.

“I’ll miss you,” she whispers and he can hear the tears in her voice. She kisses his cheek. “I’ll tell - everyone you’ll miss them to.”

“Don’t tell HR that. He’ll think I don’t hate him. Which, and I can’t stress this enough, I do.”

They hug one more time before Harry steps onto the platform. He can still smells Cisco’s apartment in his clothes, Cisco’s skin in his skin. He wonders how long he can hold onto the scent.

Jesse waves to him. Seeing her cry always makes him feel like his stomach has been cut open, but he reminds himself she’ll be happy here. She’s so much better off without him.

They all are.

**Author's Note:**

> This was originally intended to be crack - Harry would never give HR anything for his birthday - but Harry has a lot of Feelings and this really got out of hand. 
> 
> Also please know it was a struggle not to title this "if you wanna be my lover." 
> 
> Feedback is appreciated! And if you want to yell with me about Cisco-related things you can find me at aquaexplicit at tumblr dot com.


End file.
